Before I get started, I figure I should give credit where credit’s due and thank my brother for reminding me of this retarded episode in wrestling history.

Anyway, for those who are unaware, the puny and borderline mentally deficient individual you see marching down the ramp in the clip above is professional wrestler Duane Gill AKA Gillberg.

Throughout his career, Duane Gill belonged to a special fraternity in the wrestling industry that is referred to that of the “enhancement talent.”

That is to say, his mission upon stepping into the ring, was to put other wrestlers over, to lose to them and enhance their image in the process.

Operating in numerous tag teams and as a soloist under his real name, Gill served as a staple of the WWF’s jobber division throughout the 90’s, even getting drafted into The J.O.B. Squad, a stable made up entirely of talented jobbers such as Hardcore Holly and Al Snow.

During this time, The J.O.B. Squad members all achieved a certain level of notoriety, leading to Hardcore Holly being given his own faction in the form of a team-up with Crash and Molly Holly, Al Snow being shoveled gimmicky storyline after gimmicky storyline in an attempt to somehow keep him relevant, not the least of which being that one time he fought himself in a hardcore match.

That was awesome by the way.

Duane Gill however, at least for a brief moment in time, went on to bigger and better things.

In 1997, WCW introduced to the world a wrestler that was arguably the only superstar the organization ever raised from the ground up under Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo.

In short, during his prime, Goldberg was the hottest thing going in WCW.

He was an unstoppable force that went undefeated in 173 consecutive matches, a marketing angle that has rarely been attempted, let alone successfully.

In response to Goldberg’s popularity, the WWF decided to create a puny parody of the character in the form of casting Duane Gill as “Gillberg.”

As you might have guessed from the clip at the top of this post, Gillberg was a total fucking joke.

His entrance laughably mocked every aspect of Goldberg’s right down to the sparklers and fire extinguishers in place of legitimate pyrotechnics.

His wrestling style could be described as “squirrel-y” at best.

Despite this, Duane Gill’s jobber skills made him fun to watch on occasion, largely due to the flexibility of his undersized frame.

Take a look here at his match with Essa Rios AKA “That One Talented Guy That Was Popular For About 5 minutes But Ultimately Became Overshadowed By His Escort, Lita“:

Both WCW and the WWF would create numerous parody characters of each other’s talent in a decidedly lowbrow attempt to chip away at their rival’s reputation, but in my eyes, Gillberg was one of the more successful attempts.

Week to week, Gillberg would come out, be pathetic, and make people laugh, however unlike WCW’s “Oklahoma,” Gillberg would do so without doing harm to anyone’s reputation.

He was a mockery of Goldberg, yes; but at the end of the day he was just a clown, plain and simple.

That being said, due largely in part to a lack of interest/competition in the Light Heavyweight division at the time, (these days it doesn’t even exist) Gillberg actually managed to acquire the Light Heavyweight Championship at one point.

Oddly enough, said lack of interest in the division resulted in Gillberg carrying the belt for well over a year, making him the longest reigning Light Heavyweight in WWF history.

So there you have it:

Gillberg, the pitiful jobber who was a joke from beginning to end, yet somehow managed to achieve a historic title reign.

Hell, even that worthless pile of merch’ shilling dumb fuckery, John Cena; F U-ed the Big Show and Edge at the same time.

But at the end of the day, only Brock Lesnar superplexed the Big Show and destroyed THE ENTIRE FUCKING RING in the process.

I’ve seen guys get chokeslammed through the mat before, but this is a whole ‘nother thing altogether.

Usually, when holes get put in the mat, or any sort of damage is incurred on the ring in general; you can plainly tell that the incident was scripted in some way, usually through the use of a trap door/pre-fabricated hole.

When I watch this clip, it’s hard to make a case for it being scripted or planned in any way.

For one thing, I don’t think this was actually the last match booked for the evening in which it aired; making it completely unrealistic to consider the organization having originally planned to destroy the ring before the show was over.

Also, listening to Tazz, a semi-professional commentator scream “HOLY SHIT!” at the top of his lungs, it seems to me that his reaction was likely that of genuine surprise.

Regardless of whether this incident was scripted or not, it brings me unconscionable amounts of joy just knowing that a moment like this exists in the world of wrestling.

If ever there was video evidence to convince the Big Show to lay off the Taco Bell, this would have to be it…

Often taking on an “unstoppable force” persona akin to that of Andre the Giant, The Big Show, or even Goldberg; super-heavyweight wrestlers rarely exhibit the most talent, but always stand out due to their prodigious girth.

Whether they be the likes of the absurdly massive Haystacks Calhoun, or the surprisingly agile and technically proficient Rikishi, the fat guys of wrestling have always drawn crowds, regardless of ability.

That being said, on the rare occasion that promoters find themselves in the position to slam 2 extraordinarily heavy individuals together in the ring, you can be they go out of their way to make it happen.

Such is the reason we had silly match-ups like the world famous Akebono facing off against The Big Show in a sumo match.

Truth be told, this wasn't all that bad...

The match the title of this post refers to though, was between Yokozuna and King Mabel in the mid-90’s, when Yokozuna was starting to get embarrassingly overweight.

This match stands out to me, largely because when viewed side by side, both men have perhaps the strangest physiques in all of wrestling.

Yokozuna is about 90% ass, and King Mabel is basically 500 lbs of torso.

Seriously man, when you take a closer look at Mabel’s ankles, I’d swear they were made of toothpicks.

The match is by no means a classic, with both men being the sort that lack the agility to take bumps convincingly, or in rapid fashion; resulting in a sluggishly paced match with little to no high impact maneuvers.

It’s disappointing really, during this era Mabel was actually relatively fleet of foot; unlike later in career when he went by the monicker of Viscera.

Man, it's hilarious to think how accurate those proportions are to the real thing...

As mentioned before, Yokozuna was pretty much on his way out by this time, which strangely enough, kind of upset me back in the day.

I was kind of heavy as a kid, and more than a little Azn; so despite his questionable wrestling skills, I always kind of had a soft spot for him.

More than anything though, I really dug his wrestling style and the way he’d utterly obliterate most of his opponents.

He was the borderline mute and utterly unstoppable force of late 90’s wrestling, and by golly; he was damn good at it.

It’s a shame his acting ability never really measured up to his wrestling prowess, as I remember my childhood perception of him getting knocked down a peg or 2 by his appearance in the utterly craptacular Universal Soldier: The Return.

Oh well, at least his appearance in the Megadeth music video produced for the movie was good for a laugh, what with his repeated mouthing of the words “Crush ’em” into the camera and…… No, that’s actually all he did:

It’s funny, as dumb as it is, I actually happen to like this song quite a bit.

To this day it still surprises me that MTV aired the video for it as much as they did.

Even more surprising was how many times I actually sat through it…

Anyway, watching Goldberg Jackhammer The Giant was one of the cooler moments in wrestling moments that I ever got to witness on live television, so I figured I would share it with all of you.

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a little starved for writing inspiration at the moment…. And have been for the past few weeks now.

In that sense I apologize for the “memory lane” posts about dumb wrestling, but frankly it’s all I’ve got in me at the moment.

It’s funny, I’ve never been terribly attached to Kevin Nash as a wrestler.

Oddly enough, despite his presence in mainstream pop culture being almost entirely derived from his time spent as a wrestler, most of the reasons I’ve found to like the man have come from his acting career.

I found him and Eric Robert’s over-the-top performances in Dead Or Alive to be just about the only enjoyable portions of the movie, even though Nash’s character was clearly intended to be played by Hulk Hogan:

Outside of these performances though, Nash was never the best wrestler, nor was he all that good on the mic.

Back in his Diesel days, it was kind of cool that they let him use the “illegal” Jacknife Powerbomb as his finisher, but outside of his stature and natural charisma, the man just never seemed to push himself as much some of the bigger names in the business.

Truth be told, I think my best memory of Kevin Nash was playing as him in the WCW vs. NWO game for the Nintendo 64:

Jesus fuck I miss that game…

Blunt force trauma inflicted KO’s were featured in that game, and using any (slow as fuck) power attack from Nash would result in an almost guaranteed instant KO.

I have many great memories of playing that game, mostly derived from playing as AKI and THQ Man; however playing as Nash ranks pretty high on my list of awesomeness.

Anyway, as the clip above indicates, Nash has clearly lost some of the (non-existent) spring in his step over the years.

Oh well, at least now his wrestling is funny to watch as opposed to boring.

The highlights of his wrestling career took place largely before my time, however his over-the-top personality and legendary “OH YEEAAHH!!!” tagline were inescapable elements of growing up in the 80’s and 90’s.

While I got a chance to see him wrestle a few times in the WWF and WCW, at a time when he was largely past his all too brief prime; the things I remember most about Randy Savage, were his promo videos, and of course; his Slim Jim commercials:

In terms of mic performances, few pro wrestlers could top Randy Savage’s intensity.

Well-documented as a neurotic stickler for detail, Savage’s promos were often insane along the lines of say, The Ultimate Warrior; however they rarely ventured so far off into the absurd as to become downright incoherent as was the case with the Warrior:
… Yeah.

Anyway with his throaty, vocal cord ripping voice, Savage had a capacity to mystify and entrance like few others before or since.

He’s probably the closest thing to a poet that the Azn Badger has ever had for a personal hero.

Despite my love for anything Savage, I have to admit; like most wrestling fans of my generation, I didn’t care much for his stint on WCW.

Enough about the “dark times” of WCW wrestling though, let’s get back to the SAVAGE.

Following his jumping ship from the WWF to WCW, Randy Savage claimed the intellectual rights to his Macho Man persona; resulting in him being absent from all WWF productions thereafter.

No videogame appearances, not toys, and certainly no more awesome promo videos.

Many would consider that an admirable feat, given the corporatist nature of the business.

As fate would have it though, Savage has come back to the WWF (probably for money…) and will be appearing the new WWF licensed videogame, WWE: All Stars.

Pictured: The Rock doing to John Cena what we've all wanted for so long...

Every time I have to type the acronym “WWE,” I die a little inside…

The game looks to be an over-the-top combo based fighter, hopefully sharing mechanics and aesthetic sensibilities with the excellent WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game of old.

Mortal Kombat Gameplay + The WWF Roster = BRILLIANT.

Despite the announcement of the game, the thing that really peaked my interest, was the fact that Savage was brought on board to improv one of his legendary promo videos to advertise the game!

Check it out:

Truth be told, I haven’t actually seen Randy Savage since his turn as Bonesaw in 2002’s Spider-Man, and I’ve gotta’ say; it looks like Father Time done caught up with him and put him in the Figure Four.

He looks to have gained some weight, as most aging bodybuilders do; but most noticeable of all is the fact that his previously Just For Men-ed beard is now a snowy white.